by Tilly Delane
So why is it her nails, which are lightly scratching over my naked arm below my rolled-up shirt sleeves, are giving me shudders all the way to my toes and to the tip of my dick?
Fucking criminal.
We arrive at the bar amidst hollering greetings. Kalina slips her arm out of mine and hops onto a barstool in a practised, elegant move that totally belies her look of the day. This girl is just a bag of contradictions. She opens the tote bag she’s been carrying under her other arm and takes out a mobile.
“You’re famous!” she exclaims, looking at Raven. “Look!”
She scrolls until she finds the article she is looking for and shows us. It’s from the online edition of one of the better newspapers and all about the scandal around RoSt Cosmetics and the illegal drug trials on humans they were running at The Village where Raven worked, though thankfully Raven isn’t actually mentioned by name. Kalina reads out the whole article with enviable fluency in her sexy-as-hell Polish accent and when she finishes, Raven sighs.
“Shit, that sounds almost like Halosan were in on it. That’s exactly what my bosses are trying to avoid.”
Kalina shrugs as she puts the phone away then turns to Grace to receive a drink.
“Oh, Gimlet,” she purrs appreciatively.
Grace and Kalina have a giggle fit that nobody else understands, before Kalina takes a sip. Then she carries on talking to Raven.
“You cannot avoid what press think, yes?”
Raven shakes her head.
“No. But it’s still not good. It’s why they want me to go back to the States and lie low until Rothman’s trial.”
Rowan slips off his bar stool and slips his arms around her from behind.
“You were going to do that anyway, remember? Only now you get to do it with me.”
Grace laughs behind the bar.
“Yeah, how exactly did you swing that, Raven? When we came to visit you at The Village, it was all hush-hush because you’re not supposed to be fucking clients, but now they’re paying him to stay with you?”
Raven grins into her drink.
“We’re not fucking. He’s my security guard. I just happen to have met him as a guest.”
“And they bought that?” Grace asks.
Raven shrugs.
“I think they want to buy it. I’m pretty sure they’re going to cut me loose after the trial, so they don’t really give a damn. Good thing is, that’ll also be way after my tie-in expires, so I won’t owe them shit either. They don’t even want me back at work in between. It’s basically ‘shut up, lie low, make us look good in court, here have your salary paid in the meantime’.”
There is a moment when she seems almost sad, but then Rowan squeezes her harder, and she shuts her eyes, leaning back against him with a blissful smile on her face.
It’s a beautiful picture.
One day, I want a woman to lean on me just like that.
∞
Thank Yous, Contact, Begging for Reviews, and What to read next
Thank you...
...to the usual suspects: my babies, the man who gave me those babies, my sister for dressing my guys, Cheyenne Blue for her invaluable advice and insights, and Kathryn Calvert, my proof-reader for being simply the best.
Also to Amber for all the animal care, so I could write, and for being my first reader on KU.
And to every reader since. Thank you for spending some of your lifetime on my guys. I appreciate how big the choice is when it comes to picking a book and I feel honoured that you stopped by to loose yourself in mine.
Contact
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What to read next
Diego’s book, obviously!
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Diego (Brighton Bad Boys 3)
What? Sneak Peek, you say? Oh, alright then. Just promise me not to hold it against him...
Sneak Peek
Kalina
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Kalina, happy birthday to you.”
Grace is singing at the top of her lungs as she barges into my room, carrying a tray with a cake on it. I already know it’s raspberry and white chocolate, because Grace is the world’s worst secret keeper when she is excited. I also know that Silas baked it late last night, since the house we live in is small and you can’t really hide things like using the oven from the other occupants.
What I didn’t quite expect were the nineteen little candles on top, all lit, which wobble precariously as Grace navigates the many bits and pieces of small vintage furniture that I have accumulated over the last six months of staying here.
‘Here’ is a two-up two-down ─ as the British call it ─ house in Shoreham, a small town on the south coast of England, just seven miles out of Brighton, owned by Sheena O’Brien. Sheena is Silas’ mum and landlady extraordinaire to one lucky language school student, c’est moi, and to her son and his girlfriend, the woman who is currently looking expectantly at me.
I guess she wants me to hoof over on the bed, so she can sit down and let me blow the candles out.
I shuffle to make space for her, and Grace lowers her butt onto the mattress then shoves the tray in my face.
“Put your lips together and blow,” she says, and I giggle.
A nice, girly giggle.
“It is whistle, no?”
She grins at me.
“Blow the fucking candles out, Kalina, we have shit to do today,” she answers, and it occurs to me that being Silas’ girlfriend really hasn’t done the obscenities quota in Grace’s speech any favours.
The American woman in her mid-twenties who I met a few months ago wasn’t shy of the occasional cuss word, but she didn’t pepper her language with continuous swearing, like she does now. Grace also sounds more British all around now. I guess it’s what happens to people if they become so entangled with a British bad boy that they decide to move continent to be with him.
Not that Silas is a bad-bad boy. He’s a kitten compared to his friend Diego, aka George Benson.
My heart trips when I think of George, and that annoys the hell out of me. George ‘Diego’ Benson is everything I don’t want or need in a guy. Like the perfect do-not-shop-for-this list. Yet there is something about him that...
Argh. Don’t go there, K, don’t go there. Concentrate on the job.
I banish all thoughts of him. For now, anyway. Since he’s coming to London with us tonight to see a musical, tickets for which Sheena organised as my birthday treat, it’ll be a short-lived exercise.
Instead, I concentrate on Grace’s beautiful smile and the flickering sea of candles in front of my face.
I shut my eyes and blow hard.
“What did you wish for?” Grace asks immediately after the flames go out and puts the tray down on my lap.
That I could tell you my birthday is on Christmas Day, not in August. That I could tell you there are candles missing and we’re not as far apart in age as you think. That I could talk to you in my real voice. That I could let you see the real me.
I love this woman so hard. She is the first actual friend I made in such a long, long time. She is smart and kind and funny and just so totally Grace. I take the tray and stretch over to put it on a stool next to my bed, then sidle up to her and sling my arms around her.
It’s a Kalina thing to do. Kalina is exuberant and pixie-ish and hugs people all the time, provided they let her.
Kristina, the real me, is much more reserved. She is a doer, not a hugger. Unless you’re family, then she’s quite tactile. She’s the goth rock to Kalina’s chart pop.
Grace hugs me back hard, ruffling my short hair. Like a big sister
. Like me, with my little brothers.
For a moment I wonder if Grace would still like the real me, or not so much.
“That is secret,” I answer her question, muttering into her mane of long, dark red tresses, because that is exactly what people expect you to say. “Thank you, Grace.”
She draws back and looks at me with a little sadness.
“Hey, least we can do. Must be tough having a birthday so far away from home.”
I make a dismissive gesture.
“Pah, it’s harder on my parents than it is on me,” I declare.
The sadness disappears from her face and the smile comes back.
“Your English is getting so good,” she comments. “That was a perfect sentence. Go you, lady!”
Ah shit.
I shrug.
“Language school costs fortune, Tata says. So I work hard.”
She gets up.
“Yeah, but not today, you won’t. No studying allowed on your birthday. There is a breakfast table downstairs and presents and then there is a spa day at The Palais and then there is London. So get your pretty little ass in gear, lady. Prepare to be spoiled rotten.”
“Presents?” I ask, astonished.
I kind of knew about the spa day at The Palais, the hotel where Sheena is head of housekeeping, and I knew about going to London, but the idea of presents makes me feel extra guilty about this charade.
“Well, one,” Grace holds up a finger. “I couldn’t let everybody else give you something but not me.”
“But I thought you chipped in on the theatre tickets already,” I protest, once again forgetting that my English is not supposed to be that good yet.
It’s happening more and more often around these guys because they make me feel too comfortable. I should have changed accommodation when it became clear I had to stay longer but I didn’t want to. I like it here. So I extended my stay with Sheena.
Really, I should be finished with the job by now and be back home. This is proving to be one of the toughest cases I’ve ever had.
To my great relief, Grace doesn’t notice my slip up this time, because she is too busy explaining.
“Uh-uh. That’s old news. George took care of the tickets in the end. He wouldn’t let any of us pay him back a cent, I mean penny. Says since he was the one who insisted on renting a box instead of getting normal seats it was for him to pay.”
“We’re getting a box?” I exclaim.
Grace’s green eyes go round and her hand flies to her mouth.
“Oh crap,” she mumbles behind her palm. “That was supposed to be a surprise.”
“Yup, George is gonna have your hide,” Silas says as he appears in the door. “Kalina, you’d better work on your acting skills before tonight and act really, really surprised when we get there. Now, are we having breakfast before the cats eat it, or shall we let them have first dips on the smoked salmon anyway?”
At ‘smoked salmon’ I’m out of bed and sitting at the breakfast table in no time.
One of the few things Kalina and Kristina do share is an enduring love for all things seafood.
Bring on the caviar.
Diego
I’m in that magic state between sleep and consciousness while your dick is hard and the dreams are good, when an unwelcome knock raps on my bedroom door.
“Diego?” my parents’ maid Daisy ─ yep we have a maid these days, complete with a black and white uniform and surgically enhanced tits ─ calls out hesitantly from the other side.
None of the staff here at the Benson mansion really know whether to call me George, as my father does, or Diego, as my mother and most of Brighton’s lowlifes do, and Daisy is new to this stupid game that is my life.
“Come in,” I respond, but refuse to open my eyelids.
Under the duvet I wrap a hand around my dick and run the pad of my thumb over the slit to spread the large bead of precum that’s gathered there. The dreams were very good.
As Daisy steps into the room I slowly, surreptitiously start stroking myself. I don’t want to scare her off of the bat. I’m pretty sure she knows what the deal is around here, but she is so new, I haven’t tried her out yet.
“Your father sent me to wake you. He would like you to join him for breakfast,” Daisy informs me.
Fuck. Not a sexy thought.
The old man wanting to have breakfast with me means he wants to talk shop, and I avoid mingling my business with his business these days. Most of the time I just don’t want to fucking know.
My father is a complete cunt. His dealings hurt innocents. People. Animals. Society.
Me? I’m just half a cunt. The people ─ and it is always people, never other creatures ─ who get hurt in my line of business all know what they are letting themselves in for and are old enough to make that decision.
Plus, lately I’ve been trying to go properly legit. I have this fantasy that people will finally leave me the fuck alone if I do. Being a fledgling don in this city is a pain in the arse most of the time. People always want something from you. Your money, your connections, your hide.
They never just spend time with you for the sake of spending time.
There are exactly six people on the planet who I can just be me with. Two of them, Rowan and Raven, are presently in America. The other four I am taking to London to see a musical tonight. For Kalina’s birthday. A fucking musical. Never thought I’d be seen dead going to one of those. But that’s what she’s into, so that’s what she gets.
Thinking of Kalina gives me the familiar surge of lust, guilt and self-loathing that always comes when I conjure her face up in my mind’s eye. Or when I see her in real life. Or if I just think her name. Half her name, even.
The language student living under my oldest and best friend’s mother’s roof right now is the most hauntingly beautiful, sexy creature I have ever seen, yet so, so wrong in all respects. She is too young, too scrawny, too boyish.
I like tits and an ample bottom I can bite into, long hair that I can wrap around my fist while I fuck into a woman, who jiggles a little ─ not too much ─ from the impact. There isn’t a single jiggly bit on Kalina. Even her tiny tits appear to be made of the alabaster the rest of her seems to consist of. A girl like her, and at nearly seven years younger than me Kalina is definitely a girl, should only ever evoke feelings of protectiveness in anyone, never ever carnal desire.
Yet even berating myself for thinking about her in that way in the first place makes my dick quiver in my fist. I can’t win.
I’m fucked.
Somebody is clearing a throat, and I remember that Daisy is still in the room, waiting to be dismissed.
“Come closer,” I tell her instead, smiling with my eyes still shut.
People call me handsome, reminiscent of Brad Pitt, back when he was younger and bleached his hair, and they say I have a killer smile. I’ve seen Daisy looking. They all do. Some look at my face, others at my purse. None of them at me.
But they don’t need to, provided they open wide.
I listen out as she steps up to the side of the bed. They are not hesitant steps. Good. I guess my father’s already put her through the drill.
“Want to earn a bit extra today?” I ask her bluntly.
I never used to pay for sex. I don’t need to. But lately I’ve started feeling more comfortable if it’s a business transaction rather than fucking with their dreams, literally, of landing me and my wallet more permanently.
I can hear her swallow before she answers.
“What would I need to do?” she asks.
I throw off the duvet to reveal my hand pumping my boner.
“Suck me off,” I say.
She doesn’t miss a beat.
The mattress dips when she gets on the bed, and I roll onto my back.
As soon as her lips find my cock, I put my hands behind my head and let her service me.
She’s okay at this.
Not great, not bad, but a decent average.
She su
cks nicely up top and pumps the base with her hand in a rhythm that works for me.
I relax into it.
Behind my shut eyelids I see large brown, nearly black eyes, looking at me hungrily as a matt purple painted mouth runs up and down my shaft. I see high cheekbones in a heart-shaped face popping out more starkly as her cheeks are sucked in. In my fantasy, I hear her whimper with lust as she worships my cock like no other woman has before.
My orgasm comes hard and fast, the actual woman on my cock withdrawing before my load lands in her mouth.
I open my eyes and look at Julia’s blue irises and her pink, glossy lips as she scrambles from the bed with a demure smile and rights her uniform.
“Good?” she asks.
“Good enough,” I say.
I know I’m being a complete arsehole, but I intend to reimburse her well enough for her not to mind too much.
Still, the comedown is huge.
Not the right woman, not the right mouth.
“Tell my father I’ll be there in fifteen.”
End of Sneak Peek
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Diego (Brighton Bad Boys 3)